Finishing Those Bones at Goliad…and discovering friends!

Here’s the cover for Those Bones at Goliad, sequel to How Far Tomorrow. Not quite the traditional sequel, the narrative begins well before the Texas Revolution and concludes years after. I figured with the first book I’d spent my passion for the less told characters and events of Texas history. But I was pulled back in by the mystery of a Mississippi boy, last traced to the fierce battle at Refugio. Learning about a Georgia father of three who made it home after the nightmare demise of Fannin’s men, I could not leave his story untold. The Texas flag was designed by a woman, and the Texas archives were defended by a woman…but who did these two count as their friends?….I could say that Shelby Whitmire is an imagined character, but don’t ask fiction writers if their protagonists feel…real. Shelby, too, never thought he would leave Mississippi, and he would never have foreseen his adulthood unfolding in Texas…Don’t ask fiction writers to stop free-associating either, because it’s a Neil Young song coming to mind about Shelby and Texas…”all his changes were there.”

****** FOUND Friends! FOUND Virtual Siblings! in the quest to give Georgia Battalion men the place they deserve in Texas history…Please visit the website: georgiabattalion.com

The Georgia Battalion Project: This is a beautiful and wonderfully informative website researched and set up by two descendants of ANOTHER little known battalion survivor–James Peter Trezevant. I cannot believe my good fortune in making connections/having conversations with Robert Trezevant and Richard Allen. We are three far-flung Texas history buffs…no, fanatics…determined to wrest from the shadows the deeds of remarkable independence volunteers…Yep, I’m already seeing scenes when I sleep..another novel is hatching!

Author

Kirkus Review is in for Those Bones at Goliad

Judith Austin Mills "keeps the plot moving, allowing the stories of ordinary Texans to outweigh the political rivalries and diplomatic rifts that fill the history books."
Kirkus sums up my sequel as "a sweeping tale of 19-century Texas." The new book is due out in September!

Cover design for Those Bones at Goliad

Sequel to How Far Tomorrow due out late summer

Wonderful website, friends of the Geotgia Battalion

Spend some time at...georgiabattalion.com to see what's been discovered about another battalion survivor. Read about James Peter Trezevant. I'm now friends with two of the independence volunteer's descendants! Their Georgia Battalion Project lives on.

Plain View Press, Susan Bright’s Legacy

As Plain View Press says, ONWARD…

The original publisher of Plain View used to always close her message with "Onward." And sInce the first 2013 calendar page is about to turn, I'd better move beyond last fall and winter in my reporting. I just got the chance to thank Susan Post again--while volunteering a bit with her annual book store inventory--for hosting an event last January in remembrance of publisher Susan Bright. I hope the Austin icon would have been proud of How Far Tomorrow and of my progress with its sequel/companion To the Bones of La Bahia.

Association of Writers and Publishers: Feb.29-Mar.3: Chicago

This well-known conference is in Chicago this year, and I'm so happy that Plain View Press publisher Pam Knight and staff-member Sherry Pilisko were able to attend. The press has a nice one-page spread in the program(p.227), and How Far Tomorrow is among the featured covers. Copies of my novel were available to reviewers at the PVP table.

The Georgia Post(Thursday, April 5) mentions How Far Tomorrow

This newspaper covers Crawford County, Georgia, where the tiny town of Knoxville saw the Georgia Battalion march through in November, 1835, on its way to help settlers struggle against oppression in Texas. At the inn in Knoxville, Joanna Troutman, gave her handmade lone-star banner to William Ward to carry into battle.
In this article my aunt, Mary Hunt Bartlett, is pictured with Sydney Goodrich, whose ancestor John T Spillers was among the very few survivors of Goliad.
Thanks to my Aunt Mary for delivering copies of How Far Tomorrow to the Crawford library and newspaper. Thanks to all the residents of Crawford County for keeping the memory of the Georgia Battalion alive. A special note of thanks to Georgia author and Georgia Post columnist Billy Powell for his steady articles about Knoxville's local hero.

An event at BookWoman, January 15 in Austin, Texas, 4:00-6:00

*** On January, 2012, at BookWoman, Ute Carson and I co-hosted and read samplings from our own work as well as the books of others Plain View Press authors.